The Demons You Don't Escape
by ChocolateChip-Master
Summary: After a few minutes in the pod, the wound Keith had sustained in the Blade Trials was nothing but a dim, painful memory. But an incident has that injury returning full-force, leaving Keith unable to use his arm, and Hunk and Pidge as his only saviors. / Part 5 of my BTHB


**Anon Requested: For the bingo-thingy, can you do Reopening an Old Wound for Keith? The one he got from the BOM trials? I loved your portrayal of Hunk and Pidge in Interrogation, so maybe you could have them taking care of him?**

**Absolutely! I love me some good protective Hunk and Pidge.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

_Breathe in, breathe out._

Keith drew in a deep breath, inflating his lungs with all the air he could manage, before letting it go in one long, slow breath.

_Patience yields focus._

Keith was never the most patient person. He was too fidgety. Years of foster care had taught him to constantly stay on alert and he got far too anxious when _something _didn't happen in a tense situation.

It felt even worse than normal at the moment because he was on watch duty.

He held his bayard tightly as he glanced up and down the empty corridors. Pidge and Hunk spoke in hushed tones in the room behind him, working together to hack into the security system and take all the information they had on hand. It was clearly a new algorithm, something almost unheard of for the Galra. Despite that, though, Keith had complete faith in the two kid-geniuses currently tossing ideas back and forth.

But Keith wished it didn't take so _long._

He tapped his finger anxiously against the handle of his bayard, squinting down the purple hallways. Anxiety had run his nerves raw, and now he was practically envisioning the sentries charging down the hallway towards him. The thought, while mildly terrifying, would definitely alleviate the pressure settling in on his chest.

"How's it going?" Keith couldn't stop himself from asking.

"If I had to guess..." Hunk paused, clearly contemplating his response. "I'd say we're about fifty percent through their security? Maybe more?"

"We're almost done," Pidge said. "Just keep watch."

"I know," Keith muttered, sounding a lot more bitter than he had intended. He wished there was something else he could do to help, something to keep his nerves from self-destructing. Tapping his finger anxiously against his bayard could only do so much, after all.

He sighed, leaning against the wall and practically glaring down the hallway. He listened quietly for the sounds of anything - sentry or otherwise - coming toward them.

His hearing was exponentially better than anyone else's on the team. Before he'd known he was Galra, Keith had attributed it to either lucky genes or not listening to music so loud that he blasted a hole in his eardrums. (_Unlike Lance, _Keith thought.) Now, he knew better. His hearing was because of the Galran genes that lay mostly dormant in his blood.

So, when the telltale tromps of sentry steps echoed down the corridor, Keith was the first to know.

He let out a quiet curse, glancing in through the door. "Guys-"

"We're on the verge of a breakthrough," Pidge said, her eyes narrowed at her laptop.

"Guys, no, we don't have time anymore," Keith said. The footsteps grew louder. "Sentries. A lot of them, they're closing in on us."

"Shit," Pidge said, looking up briefly. The footsteps were now clearly able to be heard by both her and Hunk. She gritted her teeth and continued working, newfound determination blossoming in her eyes.

Keith glanced behind him as Pidge continued typing. At her side, Hunk cast anxious looks between Keith and her, messing with a pair of wires.

"Pidge-" Keith tried.

"Two ticks!"

"We don't have the time-"

"Three ticks!"

It became increasingly evident, however, that they did _not _have three ticks.

The first of the violet lights of the sentries came charging down the hallway. They'd seen Keith, hovering outside of the door of their server room, and had probably figured out what was going on.

"_Pidge!" _Keith shouted, summoning his bayard. He clashed with the sword of a sentry, the force of the blow making his grip falter just the slightest.

"Just one more second!"

His arms shuddered and he put as much weight as possible on the back of his heel and pushed forward with a burst of strength, knocking the sentry off balance. He swung his own blade in a wide arc and the sentry crumpled in a heap of machinery. He turned on his heel to clash with another, glancing inside as Hunk was now frantically connecting and disconnecting wires.

_Defend the door, _he thought. _Got it._

He drove the point of the sword through a sentry's skull, gripping the back of it to give him more leverage. He kicked the limp body into several others, burying them under a pile of tangled limbs and confused beeping.

Keith thought he was holding up pretty well. The sentries came at him two at a time, rather than descending upon him and overwhelming him in sheer numbers.

This was alright.

He could handle this.

Of course, everything always had to go wrong when things were finally going right.

"Got it!" Pidge shouted triumphantly, disconnecting her laptop from the Galran mainframe and slamming her laptop lid shut. Distracted momentarily, Keith took his attention away from the sentries for just a second.

Keith would only realize later what happened.

One of the sentries he'd been grappling with advanced once more. It swung its arm down in a wide arc, sword in hand, and it _sank _into Keith's flesh with a horrifying squelching noise.

But in that moment, Keith only knew agony.

Without thinking, he let out a pained cry, doubling over. His bayard clattered from his hand, vanishing in a puff of silver light. He fell to the floor.

"Keith!" Shouted Pidge.

She flung herself forward at the same time Hunk summoned his bayard. He stepped in front of their downed friend and pulled the trigger. The sentries were treated to a first-class treatment of an angry Hunk as Pidge pressed her hands to the ripped material of Keith's flightsuit. Blood had already soaked through it, staining Pidge's hands as she tried to find the wound.

"Fucking-" she looked at Hunk as he dismantled the last sentry delivering a flurry of bullets into its legs and chest. "Hunk, we have to get back to Green! He's…"

Hunk didn't need to be told twice. He leaned down to scoop Keith into his arms. Keith let out a loud gasp of pain as his injured arm lolled, ripped skin pulling and further opening the wound. His eyes squeezed shut as he gripped his shoulder tightly.

"I-I can walk-" he tried to say.

"Shut up," Pidge told him as nicely as she could.

Keith did as he was told.

Hunk all but sprinted down the hallway, crushing sentry remains underneath his heels. Pidge was right behind him, mapping out the quickest route out of the base and practically shouting directions. Keith groaned in pain as Hunk took a sharp left and jostled the injured boy in his arms.

"Sorry, Keith," Hunk murmured, barely loud enough for the other boy to hear through the rush of his blood in his ears.

"'S okay," Keith muttered. He never could say how they made it through the purple hallways and through the bay doors. All he was really aware of was the agony in his shoulder, a familiar throbbing of an old wound reopened. This pain was familiar, and not in a good way.

Pidge was the first onto the Green Lion, throwing apart the supply boxes for her first aid kit. She was pulling out every bottle and bandage available when Hunk stopped her, placing his hand on her arm.

"Pidge, wait," he said, surprisingly calm.

"No time to wait," Pidge snapped as another spurt of blood seeped from in between Keith's fingers. "He's lost too much blood already."

"Pidge-Pidge, we _can't." _Hunk tried again.

Pidge glared at Hunk through the thick lenses of her glasses. "What do you mean 'we can't?!"

"Our stuff doesn't work on him, remember?" Hunk said. "They never _have _worked on him. Coran had to go through his first aid kit and change everything because of his genes!"

He avoided saying the word that was lingering on the tip of his tongue. 'Half-Galran'. It had been a little over a month since Keith's true parentage had been revealed and since then, the topic had been - and still was - a sore one. It had taken Allura awhile to come to terms that a Galra hybrid was piloting a Voltron Lion while Coran had done every little thing to help adjust to Keith's suddenly very specific needs. The first thing he had done was change Keith's first aid kit so the supplies inside would actually _work _on him. It explained a lot since Keith had always healed the slowest in the pod, despite his bruises vanishing almost overnight. The pod settings were set for a human. Keith - simply put - wasn't human.

Pidge's kit was meant for someone like her - fully-blooded in one species. She had salves and painkillers meant for non-hybrids. Most of the antiseptics applied to him here wouldn't even _work. _Pidge had completely forgotten about that.

"Fucking god damn shit-" she swore colorfully. Hunk winced.

"Pidge-"

Pidge threw the first aid kit and all of the supplies she'd gotten out of it back into the box. "We have to get back to the Castle. Radio Shiro, or Allura, or fucking _anyone. _Tell them we need a pod prepped by the time we land."

Hunk nodded. He raised a hand, speaking into the comms as calmly as he could manage. Keith, meanwhile, hardly heard them. His grip was tight around his shoulder, a familiar pain blooming in his shoulder. He'd gotten this wound once before - but only once.

Hunk lifted Keith again, putting him in one of the pull out beds in Green's cockpit. "We're on our way home," he murmured, placing a gloved hand over Keith's forehead. His skin was pale and clammy, sweat clinging in beads to his hairline. "Hang in there buddy."

Keith managed a single pained nod.

Green touched down in the hangar almost ten full minutes later. It felt like years to Pidge as she glanced back at Keith. He was now staining the sheets of the bed with scarlet and her stomach rolled. She willed her guts to hold it together as she stood.

Shiro was the first to approach them when they left Green's cockpit. His forehead was creased with worry, a thousand questions on his lips, but they had no time to answer any of them. Pidge shoved past him while Hunk offered Shiro an apologetic smile.

Coran was waiting in the infirmary, a suit in hand and a pod already opened. He ushered Hunk to a nearby table, where he began stripping Keith of his armor and flightsuit, leaving him in only his boxers.

It was then that Pidge and Hunk got a good look at the wound.

It was large and bloody, jagged with strips of skin falling into the wound. Dried blood had already stained most of his upper arm and chest scarlet. An angry red swelling had already begun around faded skin that both Hunk and Pidge recognized as a scar.

The same scar Keith had earned during the Marmora trials where Keith discovered who - or rather _what _\- his mother was and who he was meant to be. During the battles he'd endured in an effort to find the truth, Keith had his shoulder split open by a Blade. This was the same, right down to the arm that had gotten slashed.

Pidge bit back another wave of nausea. Hunk clapped a hand to his mouth.

"Oh god," Pidge whispered. "That's-"

"Same area and everything," Hunk agreed, looking green.

Coran - deeply disturbed, but doing a good job at hiding it - began zipping the medical suit over Keith. Blood began to seep through the thick material. Keith groaned softly.

"Into the pod we hop," he said softly, trying to sound upbeat but failing to mask the concern in his voice. Keith obeyed, stumbling to his feet. Hunk took two steps forward - ready to carry Keith into the pod if he had to - but their Red Paladin held his own. He staggered into the pod and it closed over his face, obscuring him in the cold mist.

"I should go report to the others," Coran spoke softly. "Let them know he'll be all right." He gave them all a comforting smile and left the room. The infirmary door hissed shut behind them.

For what felt like hours, there was silence.

Pidge had crossed her arms tightly - almost like a pretzel - smearing Keith's blood all up her arms. Hunk's chest was covered in it.

Keith had reopened the wound that had ailed him so when he and Shiro returned from the Marmora base. It had been a nightmare trying to wrestle Keith into a pod to heal it, and because of that, it scarred over into a gruesome red and dull tannish line from his collarbone to his shoulder blade. And now it had reopened. More than likely, there'd be two scars there now. One clean and deliberate, the other jagged and accidental. Crossing over each other like a deadly reminder of what could have been.

Finally, Pidge broke the silence. "What the _fuck, _Hunk." Her voice cracked.

Hunk couldn't agree more. While normally he and Shiro were most adamant about correcting Pidge's admittedly horrendous language, he could think of no better way to describe what just happened.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Do...you think the sentry...knew?" He swallowed to try and moisten his dry throat a little. It didn't help.

Pidge's grip tightened on her arms. "_No. _No one but us knew. That was a lucky shot_. _He...god, Hunk. You know how close it was axillary artery? Last time that Blade of Marmora dude almost cut it in half...what did it do this time?"

Hunk tried not to think about that.

"We...we got him back in time," he said carefully. "A-And the pods can fix any injury...interior or exterior. He'll be okay."

The unspoken question hung thick in the air between them.

_What would have happened if they were too late?_

Keith probably would have bled out. He almost _had _by the time he and Shiro returned from the Marmora base. This time it was far closer. Too close for comfort.

Pidge gritted her teeth. "_Fuck _this."

"Huh?"

"_This," _Pidge said vehemently, waving her hand around her. "We're just _kids, _Hunk. And we almost die every single day and for what? A war we didn't start? Just because we bonded with some space lions means we can be thrown into a war we have _nothing _to do with?"

Hunk looked away, fixing his gaze firmly on Keith's pod. She was right, of course. They were children playing soldier, only connected to the stars because of the fascination everyone held with the worlds beyond their own. But they did this because they had to. Because no one else _could _do it.

"We're soldiers, Pidge," Hunk whispered. His voice was weak, barely audible to the girl standing next to him. "It's what we do."

Pidge did not reply. Instead, she chose to stand next to him in silence, listening to the hum of the Castleship around them.

Hunk didn't know why, but he _really _felt like crying.

* * *

**For the 'reopening an old wound' square on my Bad Things Happen Bingo card. **

**Finally, I've gotten back to this! **

**I had a quick hiatus on this one because I wasn't sure where I wanted it to go, but I did get it done! I'm actually reasonably happy with how this turned out. I hoped you enjoyed this, anon!**

**Protective Hunk and Pidge are always a pleasure to write and I personally headcanon that Pidge's swearing habits go through the roof when she's either angry or stressed. In this situation, she's both. **

**I hope you enjoyed this! **


End file.
